Jf?e peruuiai? |T\ummy. 
[Read before the Anthropological Society, Washington, D. C., 
Tuesday evening, April 5th, 1898.] 
In the disposition of the body after death many different 
forms have prevailed. From the care that many of the ancient 
nations took of the body after life was extinct, it is evident that 
they held the body in high esteem. Perhaps they desired that 
it should be so well preserved that it would be ever ready for 
some “resurrection morn,” or some period of reincarnation. On 
this subject they had peculiar ideas of economy. Yet in the case 
of the Egyptians, they very inconsistently removed from the body 
the very part—the brains—that gave it any special value. They 
could not well preserve the brains, so they are said to have ex- 
tracted them. And here is an opportunity for some humorist to 
indulge his fancy in having, when the time comes for resurrec- 
tion, the wrong body to be supplied with the wrong brains—brains 
that would not fit the body; or, for an ineffectual search for even 
any brains to supply the mental power. 
Among many of the ancient nations there was a great rever- 
ence for the mere body after death. Yet they were not all after 
this order; for some of them, we know, in this respect had as 
little regard for the body after death as prevails at the present 
day. 
At death all that gives value to the body departs; we know 
not where. That this all-important power should have no further 
existence does not seem reasonable, at least to many of us. That 2 
it should exist only with the life, and endure only so long as-that 
endures, seems unworthy of the Great Cause that created all na- 
ture. The immortality of the soul, therefore, seems very con- 
sistent with our high appreciation of the Power that created it. 
No subject before the world has been of greater interest to 
mankind. Surely, we cannot prove, as we can prove many other 
things, that the soul is immortal. Still it has been a most potent 
belief with the world—from the earliest ages down to the present 
time. 
Many of the ancient nations taught the doctrine of the im- 
mortality of the soul, and from the evidence of the Peruvian 
mummy it is obvious that the ancient Peruvians, too, were firm 
believers in this most agreeable doctrine. They devoted much 
attention to the body after death, as though they anticipated 
that it would again become the abode of the soul; that the soul 
had only departed from it for a season, and that in God’s good 
time it would again become reincarnated with the spirit that 
gave it value; and that, after lying dormant for a period, the 
body would advance on to some higher sphere. 
The Parsees, having the religious teachings of the ancient 
Eastern world to inspire them, laid particular stress upon the idea 
that the human body must depart from life in the same condition 
that it entered upon its existence here. Naked the body came 
into the world, and naked it must depart. So, after death, they 
stripped the body of every vestige of clothing, whereby the rank 
in life was known; and thus it is exposed to the vultures, who 
very soon tear the flesh from the bones and leave them to be con- 
signed to a pit where no distinction is known. 
While this reasoning and lesson may seem valueless to us, very 
intelligent and highly spiritual people believe in it, and even con- 
tinue it to this day. 
The Peruvians, on the contrary, while they did not try to pre- 
serve the flesh after the manner of the Egyptians, nor treat it 
with the contempt of the Parsees, did preserve it in a manner 
peculiar to themselves. Instead of laying the body out at full 
length, as did the Egyptians, they doubled up the lower limbs so 
that they came in close contact with the body. The hands, as a 
rule, are crossed on the upper part of the breast, the palms lying 
flat against the body, very much after the manner of the position 3 
assumed by the early Christians. We also see this same position 
of the hands in the Egyptian mummy. 
This is the most common position of the hands in the Peruvian 
mummy, though there is one in the Army and Medical Museum, 
which, from its superior dress, was evidently a person of high 
rank, wherein the lower limbs, instead of being doubled up on a 
line with the body, are bent as though the object was to form a 
good base for a sitting posture ; the foot of each leg extending 
towards the upper part of the femur of the other. The right 
hand is extended to the left shoulder, and the left arm doubled 
up so as to bring the left hand in contact with the right; or both 
brought together on the left shoulder. 
Then there is one with a slight variation of one of the hands, 
which, instead of lying upon the breast, as the other hand does, 
is elevated so as to support the chin. 
If these variations stand for anything—and it is quite certain 
that they do—they would seem to convey the idea of different 
ranks and orders among these people. 
Why the Peruvians should have adopted these peculiar styles, 
or the peculiar form of most of their mummies, we know not. 
Still, in the absence of facts, we have the right to substitute a 
theory; and if the theory is in accordance with certain well- 
known facts, it would appear to have some value. 
From the more common position, where the lower limbs are on 
a line with the body, it would seem that, by it, they attempted at 
death to adopt, as near as possible, the position of the body in 
the womb. In the same form, as was the body prior to birth, 
they would preserve it after death. As they entered this world 
so would they enter the great world of the future, supplemented 
by the reverential posture of the hands. 
Posture in this line would seem with them to be a very im- 
portant matter. This established, we can go further, and, with 
little effort, infer more. For with it, it would seem to carry 
anatomical knowledge of the body. That is, if they knew one 
thing so important as this, it would go to prove that they were 
more or less familiar with the structure of the body, and that 
they understood many things that it took the world a long time 
to become familiar with. For example, it is asserted that they 
well understood the art of trepanning. 4 
We knew that their civilization was superior, and could it only 
have been protected instead of being brutally crushed, we might 
have learned from them far more than we have, and obtained 
much important information as to the history and condition of 
the Western Continent that must now remain a blank, at least as 
to reliable information. 
Through anthropological sources we obtain much information 
that is valuable. Still there must necessarily be much conjecture 
about it. We must be governed, as it were, by the “footprints 
upon the sands of time,” and by the closer insight as to the full 
character of those “footprints,” whereby we can obtain more 
reliable information of the individuals to whom the “footprints” 
belonged. 
While the Peruvian mummy is unique and quite unlike the 
mummy of Egypt, and while there is, on certain lines, a strong 
contrast between them, in two respects, strange to say, they are 
much alike, even if not identical. In many cases, at least, the 
position of the hands and the expression of the face are essen- 
tially the same. 
To one who has not seen these mummies it may seem strange, 
after the lapse of so many centuries, to thus speak of the expres- 
sion of the face of a mummy, but the expression is there to speak 
for itself. The hands are crossed, palms inward, and extending 
nearly to the opposite shoulder, in harmony with what in Scrip- 
ture art is known as the “ Sign of the Good Shepherd.” The 
eyes themselves soon decayed, but the expression which they 
gave to the features remains, and reminds one of those lines of 
the old hymn that refers to the 
“Upward glancing of the eye 
When none but God is nigh,” 
or of that line in the Psalms which says: 
“And mine eyes are ever looking up into the hills, 
from whence cometh my help.” 
The spirit of the expression goes with it. The lines on these 
faces were so rigidly fixed, that they have remained, and will 
continue to remain so long as these mummies shall endure, and I 
trust that this will be for many ages yet to come. 5 
The spirit that inhabited the body before life became extinct 
puts its stamp upon the features, and even to this day that mark 
endures. By some persons this may seem like drawing too much 
upon the imagination, but when we come in contact with these 
reverential mummies it would not seem to require much imagi- 
nation to perceive it—to see in those “ sightless orbs,” and in- 
deed in the whole face, a most reverential expression—lines and 
character that antedates the Christian world many centuries, and 
quite independent of it, and proof to us that reverential beings 
existed in this world many centuries prior to the time of the 
Christian life in the catacombs of Rome. 
Indeed, the ancient Peruvians could have had no knowledge 
of the Christian posture at the hour of death, or even knowledge 
of this more modern school of theology. As with the Peruvians, 
so with the Egyptians. This reverential posture was common 
with them both. We will not say that the Christian world 
copied it from the Peruvians, for that would have been impos- 
sible, and it was quite as impossible that they should have copied 
it from the Egyptians. 
This reverential posture seems to be inherent in man. It was 
confined to no period, continent, or even nation or class. It was 
common to all; an inspiration for something higher than this life 
affords. A “ looking up unto the hills from whence cometh our 
help,” and an earnest desire for something beyond this life, for 
a higher existence—a “ yearning after immortality ”—and faith in 
the idea that the soul is immortal. Thus the lesson that we read 
in these ancient mummies, Peruvian and Egyptian. 
We are glad that these ancient nations, so widely separated, 
and having apparently no knowledge of each other, still worked 
on—on lines very much in common. 
While this may not be all of the evidence that there is of the 
soul’s immortality, still there is a strong argument along this line 
and a sentiment that is in full harmony with Plato’s soliloquy : 
“ Plato, thou reasoneth well, 
Else whence this fond hope, 
This pleasing desire, this longing after immortality ? ” 
The mummy answereth well—that longing of the human race 
after immortality; even after many centuries it is strangely and 6 
forcibly marked upon their faces, and proves to us that they in 
common with the great mass of humanity advocated, indorsed 
and verily believed in the words of the Psalmist, who says, “ that 
man was not made for naught; ” but that while “he was made 
lower than the angels,” he was to be “ crowned with glory and 
with worship; ” and that there is an identity to the soul as well 
as to the body, but while the body perishes, the soul endureth 
throughout all generations. 
Isaac P. Noyes.